The Wire

How unquestionably cool would it be to have Chicago filmmaker Colleen Griffen as a mom? Case in point: After she playfully noted her teenage son and his friends resembling a young, male musical group, Griffen then imagined, wrote and directed a 30-minute mockumentary about five teenage visionaries who, despite their obvious lack of talent and direction, enter a competition to become the next "it" group. That's "boyband" (lowercase intentional) – a humorous take on the vulnerability of youth and its evergreen quest for pop stardom. The five fictitious members of boyband – Lance, Chad, Preston, Yancy and Shaun – are amalgamations of people and...

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